Music Sunday: The "Nearly-New-Year Birthdays" Edition

I'm still stuck in the middle of the doldrums of the final week of 2012 and trying to get rid of the last of this stupid cold. So, I fell back on my usual strategy when I'm not inspired and checked to see who in the music world has a birthday today. Some Sundays that doesn't work. This week, however, there happen to be several musical birthdays.

As it turns out, in fact, it is a double Monkees birthday today. I think I might have even known this fact, way back in the day, when I was a pre-teen and cared about such things as celebrity birthdays. Michael Nesmith turns 70 (if I've got my math right) and Davy Jones would have turned 67. So, I started looking for Monkees clips and found this instead: Nesmith in what was apparently his first television appearance as a singer, going by the name Michael Blessing, on the Lloyde Thaxton Show in 1965 and singing "Until It's Time For You to Go":



As an historical note, "The Lloyd Thaxton Show" began as a local music/dance show on KCOP, channel 13, in 1961 and then went into syndication nationally in late 1964. It was one of the shows I watched as a young music fan growing up.

That video led me to this clip of Davy Jones, auditioning for "The Monkees":



And also, to this clip from "The Ed Sullivan Show", with Jones playing the Artful Dodger in a scene from the Broadway musical "Oliver". As a historical note, this was the same episode of the Sullivan show, in February, 1964, that The Beatles made their debut:



Another Monkee, Micky Dolenz, is not having a birthday today, but I found this clip from "Circus Boy", a series he was on when he was very young. His stage name at the time was Mickey Braddock. "Circus Boy" aired from 1956 through 1958:



But I digress, since there are other birthdays today. Those include Patty Smith. I don't know that much about Smith's work, to be honest. However, I do know the song she wrote with Bruce Springsteen - "Because the Night" - and am of the opinion that her performance of the song is superior to his performance of it:



Also having a birthday today is Jeff Lynne of ELO. I found this live performance of the band's "Mr. Blue Sky":